‘Moulin Rouge!’ at Mirvish is a jukebox musical on steroids that’s as entertaining as it is exhausting

Most musical theatre playbills feature a song list so you can follow along and see what number you just heard and who sang it. This list is usually located between the title page — which names the cast, producers and creative team — and the artist bios.
You won’t find one, however, for the entertaining, if exhausting, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” That’s just as well, since that list — including composer credits — would probably take up half the program.
This, mes amis, is a jukebox musical on steroids.
Based on Baz Luhrmann’s stylish and irreverent 2001 film, the show follows the romantic fortunes of American expat Christian (Christian Douglas), an aspiring songwriter who finds himself in 1899 Paris and besotted with Satine (Arianna Rosario), the glamorous headliner at the infamous Moulin Rouge nightclub.
Satine is a courtesan — a euphemism for an upscale sex worker — and the Moulin Rouge’s seedy owner, Harold Zidler (Robert Petkoff), hopes the wealthy Duke of Monroth (Andrew Brewer) will be impressed enough by her talents to invest in the faltering club.
After an implausible, and awkwardly staged, mix-up in which Satine confuses the penniless Christian for the dapper Duke, the latter agrees to back a show starring Satine and Christian and created by Christian’s bohemian pals Toulouse-Lautrec (Nick Rashad Burroughs) and Santiago (Danny Burgos).
However, as one of Satine’s chorus girl colleagues informs her later, the Duke is a very jealous man. As Satine and Christian’s relationship heats up, so does the Duke’s suspicions and potential threat. In addition, as did many tragic 19th-century heroines before her (think Violetta from “La Traviata” or Mimi from “La Boheme”), Satine has a cough that is likely more than a cough.
Let’s be clear. No one who sees and enjoys this “Moulin Rouge!” is going to remember the flimsy story, which was penned by Tony Award-winning playwright and screenwriter John Logan (“Red,” “Skyfall”). The book exists merely to tie together the dozens of songs.
For much of the two-and-a-half-hour running time, audiences will be playing a game of “Who sang that, again?” and “Oh yeah, that was a great song,” often taking them out of the world of the show entirely. In most cases, they won’t even get to savour a tune in its entirety, since director Alex Timbers and music supervisor Justin Levine have sliced and diced many songs into medleys.
For instance, during an extended sequence in which Satine and Christian fall in love, the two sing snatches from no fewer than 19 songs about l’amour, including “One More Night,” “Love Hurts,” “Love Is a Battlefield” and — probably so Act One can end on a curtain-lowering high note — “I Will Always Love You.”
Imagine a karaoke night run amok for those with short attention spans. There’s artistry of a sort in this mash-up arrangement, and yet, despite the prevalence of hearts in Derek McLane’s valentine-red set — an extremely scaled down version of the immersive one that’s still impressing Broadway — there’s very little genuine feeling.
We know nothing about most of these characters except that they keep saying and singing that they’re in love. It’s telling that the show’s most moving sequence, until the affecting finale, involves Burroughs’ Toulouse-Lautrec, who relates to Christian his own unspoken love for Satine in a poignant version of the old Nat King Cole ballad “Nature Boy.”
Burroughs has a strong presence and a distinctive voice, making his character, which is oh-so-loosely based on the real-life painter, stand out. Petkoff, sporting a top hat, rich red jacket and silver striped pants (Catherine Zuber’s costumes are exquisite), is equally memorable.
Leads Rosario and Douglas share a believable chemistry and their voices mesh well. Douglas is a pure tenor with an enormous range of expression that on opening night earned spontaneous applause for his scorching high notes on Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.”
For a show named after a club that featured cancan dancing, in Sonya Tayeh’s choreography there are a couple of homages to that high-kicking style. Most of the ensemble dance numbers sizzle with sex and sensuality.
If what you want in a musical are familiar songs, lively choreography and flashy outfits, “Moulin Rouge!” will please you.
But if you crave something with more substance or depth, as did the couple I saw leaving at intermission who said, “This won the best musical Tony?” — in 2020, for a season cut short by COVID-19 closures — you’ll want to look elsewhere.